Experts say West still fuzzy on al-Qaida

Clarification: Terrorism expert Jeffrey M. Bale took exception to this article, pointing out that he was misquoted and that some of the passages didn't make clear the points he was making. Specifically, Bale wrote:

* "I did not say that al-Qaida's interpretation of Islam was not religious, but simply that it is a highly politicized interpretation of the Islamic religion.

"My point was that the various currents of Islamist ideology are not identical to Islam in general, since Islamism is only one of many possible interpretations, political or otherwise, of Islam. Similarly, extremist interpretations of Christianity, such as Christian Reconstructionism, are not identical to Christianity in general."

* "I did not say that the 'jihadists keep telling us, without equivocation, that they will keep on attacking us irrespective of U.S. policies.' The sentence should be rewritten: 'and in their own publications and websites the jihadists keep stating, without equivocation, that their goal is to fight 'apostate' Muslims and 'unbelievers' until such time as their extreme version of Islam is triumphant throughout the entire world. So they will continue to try and attack us here in the U.S., and they will eventually succeed again.'

* "I did not say that al-Qaida 'is likely to be the political beneficiary of the Arab Spring.' So the sentence should be rewritten: 'Islamist groups that do not rely primarily on violence are 'likely to be the political beneficiaries' of the Arab Spring.'

* "I did not say that "The danger isn't that the vast majority will embrace Islam . . ." They are, after all, already Muslims. So the sentence should read as follows: "The danger isn't that the vast majority will embrace Islamism, he said, but that a well organized, dedicated Islamist minority will outmaneuver the non-Islamist majority."

A lot of things changed after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

What hasn't changed, said terrorism expert Jeffrey M. Bale, is "the widespread failure of Western intellectuals to understand the goals of al-Qaida — why they continue their attacks."

It isn't because of poverty, unemployment, or a dislike of U.S. foreign policy, said Bale, associate professor of terrorism studies and director of the Monterey terrorism research and education program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

The core reason, Bale said, is that al-Qaida has "embraced an extreme interpretation of Islam ... not religious, but political."

Bale was one of four panelists who spoke Friday at MIIS on "Ten Years After 9/11: Reflections on the Global Jihad."

Al-Qaida's brand of extreme Islamist ideology, Bale said, is characterized by "utopian, reactionary goals" — a rejection of Western culture, hostility to Western values, and a strict, puritanical, belligerent interpretation of Islam's sacred writings, seeing in the Quran an obligation to wage "offensive jihad (holy war) against the world of unbelief that is not just divinely sanctioned, but mandated."

Most casualties of jihad, he said, have been other Muslims, and jihadists "keep telling us, without equivocation, that they will keep on attacking irrespective of U.S. policies. They will continue to attack us, and they will succeed."

A development in the past 10 years has been the expansion of terrorist networks in Europe, India and Pakistan, according to Sharad Joshi, assistant professor of terrorism studies at MIIS, and the development of offshoot organizations of al-Qaida in Yemen, South Asia and Africa.

There has been "a dramatic increase in attacks in India and Pakistan," he said, and a sudden surge in suicide bombings.

At the same time, Joshi said, state sponsorship of terrorist organizations has declined or gone underground. "You don't see overt support regularly now. That's a huge evolution, states saying, 'We're not involved with these guys.'"

The 9/11 attacks are referred to as "the event" in the Arab world, said Ibrahim Al-Marashi, assistant professor of Middle East history in the department of history at CSU San Marcos and adjunct professor at MIIS.

The Arabic television network Al Jazeera refers to it as "the event," as do most people on the street in the Middle East.

The concern of Muslims, Al-Marashi said, has been centered on what effect "the event" has had on their lives, for example, getting visas or the prospect of retaliatory attacks. Conspiracy theories about it abound, he added, focusing on the assertion that it was "an inside job."

Al-Marashi contended that while the Middle East isn't likely to develop "the Starbucks democracy we would want," most repudiate al-Qaida's vision of an Islamist caliphate.

"The Middle East is not a region of mutually exclusive ideologies," he said, but instead a hybrid of nationalism, religion and popular democracy.

Gordon Hahn, senior researcher with the terrorism research and education program and adjunct professor at MIIS, compared the global jihadist movement with the socialist and communist movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in terms of organization and dedication.

Commenting on the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Syria, the panelists differed on what might emerge.

Al-Qaida, Al-Marashi said, has never been a mainstream movement but "it's the radicals who get the attention and make the news. They may be more organized and vocal, but they're not mainstream."

Because of that superior organization and higher level of dedication, Bale said, al-Qaida "is likely to be the political beneficiary" of the collapse of regimes in those countries, noting that the students in Egypt who triggered the downfall of President Hosni Mubarak "are being pushed aside, physically and metaphorically, by the Muslim Brotherhood."

The danger isn't that the vast majority will embrace Islam, he said, but that a well organized, dedicated minority will outmaneuver the majority.

The possibility of secular, democratic governments emerging from the Arab Spring seem dim to Bales, who remarked that most Muslim countries have very small populations of secularist-leaning residents.

It is civil society, Al-Marashi said, that gives birth to secular democracy and the norms of civil libertarianism associated with it. That occurs, he said, when political parties not based on religious or ethnic lines emerge.